Battlegrounds: Awakening
by Nicholas Canning
Summary: The Tau discover more than they wished for after invading the Imperial planet of Menth during the Third Sphere Expansion. This is an add-on story to the Battlegrounds universe, inspired by the Battlegrounds series and kindly edited by The Lone Hunter
1. Vre'Or'es Var

**Author's Note: **Ok, now I know that I'm still currently writing _Retribution_, but I was reading the Battlegrounds stories and well... you can probably guess what happened. Also, The Lone Hunter has kindly offered to help me with this story, whose help is greatly appreaciated. Anyway, on with the first chapter.

_Battlegrounds: Awakening_

_Chapter One – Vre'Or'es Var_

_Tau'cyr – M41 936.12_Kai'rotaa 1/6_Rotaa 63/80_Dec 5/10_Rai'kor 6:23_ Elite Fire Warrior Shas'Vre Vior'La Or'es Var-Mission group 2_Log..._

Shas'Vre Vior'La Or'es Var sat alongside the rest of his elite squad of Fire Warriors as they descended in a Manta Carrier ship towards the continent of Silva, on the agri-world of Menth. Or'es Var looked around at the rest of his squad as they all sat in the private loading dock of the manta, strapped in by the harnesses that wrapped around their chests. It was unusual for a mission group like this to be put together, but Or'es Var liked it. He and everyone else in his squad had been through at least two Trial by Fire's, which meant that no one was a 'greenhorn'; a word he had learnt from a Gue'vesa he had befriended.

Or'es Var's squad consisted of five Shas'Vre's and one Shas'El. And only one Shas'Vre wore an XV25 Stealth Suit. That was Shas'Vre Vior'La Fio'Tak, the technical genius of the squad. His battlesuit was equipped with a hardwired multi-tracker and two Burst Cannons. During his first Trial by Fire, his only Pulse Pistol had broken, and he had fixed it just in time to pass the Trial by Fire before he was killed. He was either extremely lucky, or a technical genius, and he liked to believe it was both.

Then there was Shas'Vre Vior'La Suam. The smallest of the squad of 6, she had a deadly aim, and so carried a Rail Rifle, which surprisingly she could hold very well, despite her size. She also carried a single Pulse Pistol if her Rail Rifle ammo should deplete. Or'es Var had replaced a former member of this elite squad just after he had passed his second Trial by Fire one and a half year ago, and had since then grown quite close to Suam. She had gained her personal name Suam, which when translated into the Gue'vesa language meant "Flame", which was fitting to her, since she had a fiery passion for the heat of battle. Suam was the sniper of the group, and also was a former pathfinder, before her second Trial by Fire.

The most battle-hardened Fire Warrior of the squad was definitely Shas'Vre Vior'La Mont'yr. Mont'yr had fought in more battles than the rest of the squad combined, and was always on the front line; where as the rest of the squad had been held in reserve for most of their military careers. Mont'yr carried a Pulse Carbine with an underslung Photon Grenade launcher and added Markerlight, and also carried with him dual Pulse Pistols. Mont'yr had a fierce personality, was always the first to react, and always had a cool head in the heat of battle. Or'es Var had met no one in his ten and a half years of service quite like Mont'yr.

Shas'Vre Vior'La Cal Mont'da was probably the calmest Vior'La Fire Warrior Or'es Var had ever known. Despite the majority of Vior'La warriors being fierce and "hot blooded", Cal Mont'da was almost always cold, and Or'es Var had never heard of him getting angry once in his nine years of military service. He carried a Pulse Rifle with Markerlight and a single Pulse Pistol. However, he liked to carry HDE's, High Density Explosives, and carried them along with EMP Grenades.

Shas'Vre Vior'La Or'es Var himself carried a Pulse Rifle and dual Pulse Pistols. Also, after being given the personal name Var after his last Trial by Fire, Or'es Var had his armour fitted with compartments that housed retractable 10" chainblades on each arm. The two compartments were built onto each of his forearms, and the chainblades could be unsheathed separately and activated separately if Or'es Var thought it, as each of the compartments were hardwired. Or'es Var tended to keep his Pulse Carbine stowed on his back, and instead use his dual Pulse Pistols and chainblades up close and personal, although that wasn't to say he couldn't shoot properly. He was better than most Fire Warriors, and even a few pathfinders had been unable to beat him during ranged training back on the training grounds of Loch'rin on Vior'La. Or'es Var was the only Fire Warrior the rest of his squad had seen who preferred close quarters combat to ranged combat. He was by a few inches the tallest of the group, being 6 foot tall, Or'es Var towers over most Tau, and everyone in his squad, most being between 5"5 and 5"8.

Lastly, there was Shas'El Vior'La M'yen. After 14 years of military service, a Shas'El would be expected to be a mighty warrior, and never fail at his missions. However, M'yen was always encountering problems in his missions, and so was given the personal name M'yen, which meant "Unforeseen" in the Gue'vesa language. He carried a Pulse Rifle and Pulse Pistol, both EMP and Photon Grenades, which would be hand thrown, of course, as the Pulse Rifle was too large to have an underslung Photon Grenade launcher. Or'es Var didn't know a lot about the squad leader, only that he was a faith-blind fool, as the others in the squad called him behind his back. He was a good leader, but not a popular one: there was a major difference between the two.

Everyone in the squad all had a Blacksun Filter, Target Lock and Searchlight, all hardwired directly to their brains; all they had to do was think about activating it, and it would happen.

Or'es Var snapped back to his senses as the private loading dock was filled with a red flashing light. The squad comm channel was filled with chatter amongst Or'es Var's squad as they entered orbit. Or'es Var could hear the explosions and gunfire outside the Manta as the defending Imperial Forces shot at the invading Tau. Suddenly, M'yen's voice broke over the now-silent squad comm channel "I've just spoke to the pilot. He says the landing zone is too hot to land; we have to drop using the one-shot jet packs and clear the LZ so that more Manta Class Bomber's can land and drop off more Fire Warriors before we can properly establish a base here on Silva. We drop in five minutes. Make sure you have extra ammo and rations in your bags, we will need them once we land," Mont'yr paused, "For the Greater Good," Mont'yr finished with an attempt at a spirit-lifting comment.

"For the Greater Good, Shas'El," The rest of the squad replied in union.

Or'es Var checked his bag: three spare ammo clips for each Pulse Pistol and four for his Pulse Carbine, six ration packs, and one HGG - otherwise known as a Heat Generator Globe. He checked the ammo clips for each of his weapons, making sure they were at 100% charge, before putting them back into the weapon. He unsheathed his chainblades and activated them, just to make sure they were working: The usual weapons check before every mission, as the whole squad did with their respective weapons. As if it had been practiced over and over before, the whole squad unstrapped themselves from their harnesses and stood up as one, immediately taking hold of the hand grips hanging from the ceiling to stop them falling. With one hand, Or'es took the one-shot jet pack from a compartment in the wall, and was helped clasp it around his waist by Cal Mont'da, before helping him do the same thing. The whole squad did the same, Suam and Mont'yr helping each other, and Fio'Tak helping M'yen. Fio'Tak didn't need a one-shot jet pack, his XV25 Stealth Suit was equipped with a jet pack; he would be fine.

The one-shot jet packs were large and unwieldy thrusters that strapped round the waist and under the shoulders. Two thrusters were clamped tightly to the straps that were located on the wearer's back, which ignited when an activation pad linked to the thrusters was pressed. The thrusters were controlled by a drone AI intelligence, and the thrusters would activate and deactivate at certain intervals to ensure the wearer landed safely and slightly comfortably on the ground.

"Squad up," Mont'yr ordered over the comm channel, and the whole squad made their way into the centre of the loading dock, using grips on the ceiling to make their way there. "Weapon slings on shoulders, hands clasped, and wait for the hatches to open. On my signal, Or'es, you will activate Cal Mont'da's thrusters, and Cal Mont'da, you will do the same for Or'es. Fio'Tak, you will activate my thrusters, and at the same time activate your own. Suam, Mont'yr, you activate each other's thrusters. Once we're dropping, each of our thrusters' AI's should take us the same way, so just hold onto each other's hands, and don't let go till we hit ground. Confirm orders." M'yen ordered the rest of the squad.

For three seconds, confirmations from each of the squad were given perfectly one after the other. "Good. I'm going to activate the drop box, after it's sealed, begin carrying out my previous orders." M'yen finished, before moving his foot over to an empty space on the floor next to him, before pressing down lightly. He moved his foot back to its original position as a blue rectangle where his foot had just been lit up on the floor, and a large metal box quickly appeared out of the ceiling and lowered around the squad. A sharp hiss followed, signalling the air-tight clamps had sealed, and then the squad was fixed in darkness. "Searchlights on," M'yen said over the comm channel, before six rays of light pierced the darkness of the drop box. Or'es quickly shouldered his Pulse Carbine sling and took hold of Cal Mont'da's right hand with his left, trapping their activation pads linked to their thrusters in between their locked palms. He took a hold of a large gauntlet with his right hand, which he knew was Fio'Tak's Stealth Suit-covered hand, and felt the suit shimmer as Fio'Tak activated the suit's holographic disruption field.

He saw a line of light flash in front of his eyes from in front of him, which shook repeatedly, and he focused his eyes in the dark to see Suam's searchlight hitting his helmet: she wanted to speak. He switched to a pre-arranged channel Suam had made Fio'Tak create just for them 40 days ago. "You wanted to speak, Suam?" Or'es asked calmly.

"I just wanted to tell you something, just in case we don't make it through this. I-" She was cut off by Or'es.

"You worry too much. Just calm yourself. I promise everything will be fine," Or'es replied as coolly as possible to try and ease the nerves of his closest friend. He wasn't sure why, but before the past few missions, Suam had been extremely anxious about something. She hadn't been this way before she had asked Fio'Tak to create a separate channel just for them, it deeply puzzled Or'es, however he did not let this distract him during battle, nor did it seem to bother Suam when Or'es said it was going to be fine. Or'es and Suam quickly switched back to the squad channel, and upon returning, heard the voice of an irritated M'yen "Are you two lovers quite finished? I asked for confirmation ten seconds ago. One more instance like this, and I'll have Fio'Tak remove your private channel."

"Apologies, M'yen. Suam was just having some anxieties, I was merely calming her down. It will not happen again," Or'es explained. M'yen responded with a grunt of acknowledgement which Or'es knew M'yen was the only Tau to ever use that expression.

_He's been spending too much time with those barbaric Gue'vesa we recruited last month, _Or'es joked to himself as M'yen repeated his orders, "The pilot said he will open the hatches in one minute, although it's 30 seconds by now. I've linked a timer to each of your HUD's; we drop when that timer hits 0. As per orders, activate your given partner's thrusters. Lights out." M'yen finished, and once again the drop box was filled with darkness. Or'es watched as the timer hit 0, and suddenly the two hatches released their hold of each other below the squad like a pair of hands unclasping their fingers, and the whole squad began to fall through the wispy clouds above Silva. After ten seconds of free falling, M'yen shouted over the comm channel, "Now!"

At once, every member of the squads jet packs were ignited. Or'es began to feel his hand slipping from the grip of Fio'Tak's Stealth Suit, and turned to see Fio'Tak and M'yen falling as one, with Suam and Mont'yr falling together as well. He then realised he and Cal Mont'da were still grasping each other's hands.

The whole squad was falling apart.

The thrusters had sent each pair into different directions. The drop had gone horribly wrong. Even worse was the fact that Or'es felt himself begin to fall faster than he should, until he realised he could no longer feel the faint heat that he had felt from the thrusters before, and then it hit him. His thrusters had failed! Or'es swore repeatedly as the comm channel was filled with hasty orders and pleads of survival to Aun'o'T'au Acaya'Va'Denta, the Master of the Undying Spirit. Suddenly, he realised Cal Mont'da was screaming his name, "Or'es! Or'es! Hold on, you're thrusters have failed! Keep hold of my hand till we drop, it's going to be rough for you if we don't. We're almost on the ground!"

Or'es didn't reply; he didn't know what to say. He simply held Cal Mont'da's hand as hard as he could, which he was sure must be hurting the weaker Tau. He lessened his grip ever so lightly, and he heard a barely audible sigh of relief from Cal Mont'da. Looking down, Or'es saw that the Cal Mont'da's thrusters had obviously malfunctioned too, as they were supposed to direct them into a safe area, but instead they were dropping into a cluster of trees. Or'es felt his hand slipping as the heat from falling this far, and the warm humidity of the forest made his and Cal Mont'da's gauntlets moist. Suddenly, his body began to spin violently as his hand slipped from Mont'da's grip, and he began falling through the air, just before he crashed into the top of the trees...

**Author's Note: **Well, I'd like to say thanks for reading, and thanks to _The Lone Hunter _for helping me with this story. The next chapter will be up instantly.


	2. Ui'Shaserra

**Author's Note: **Well, I said it would be up instantly, and here it is, the second chapter. I had already finished the second chapter before I put the first one up anyway, and I've almost finished the third. Anyway, read on.

* * *

Chapter Two – Ui'Shaserra

_Tau'cyr M41 936.12_Kai'rotaa 1_Rotaa 60/80_/_Dec 0/10_Rai'kor 0:02_ Pathfinder Shas'Ui Vior'La Shaserra-Mission group 1_Log..._

Shas'Ui Vior'La Shaserra was woken up by the AI interface that controlled his private room, in the early hours of the day, as an alarm resounded throughout the sound-proof room. "All right, all right, I'm up Kir," Shaserra said lazily as scrubbed at his white eyes with his hands and sat up on his bed. Shaserra looked at the clock that was built into the wall on the space above the door; he was supposed to be in landing bay E5 in two hours to depart from the cruiser he was currently on via Manta. Shaserra yawned and lazily stood up, before walking to the other side of the room to his massive wall-sized locker. He gently laid his palm on a space on the right of the locker, and a rectangle around his palm light up blue. Just as it did, a small square-shaped hole appeared in his locker at his eye-height, before projecting a ray of blue light into his left eye.

After three seconds, the ray of blue light vanished, and Shaserra removed his palm from the locker, and the blue rectangle faded. Just as he did, a hiss resounded in the room, and the door to the locker slid upwards, revealing an assortment of things: Shaserra's thin Iridium armour with hardwired Blacksun Filter, Target Lock and Searchlight, which all of the separate carapaces for were displayed on metal stands to take the shape of an actual Tau wearing the armour; his Pulse Carbine with attached Networked Markerlight; his dual Pulse Pistols at either side of the Carbine; various foods, drinks, and other items that a Pathfinder of the Tau would need. He removed his weapons from the clamps that held them to the wall and laid them on a polished white table along with ammo for each of his weapons; three for his Pulse Carbine and two for each of his Pulse Pistols. Turning around, he proceeded to his en-suite to properly wash and clean himself.

30 minutes later, Shaserra emerged from his en-suite and dressed himself in the thick, silk fatigues he wore underneath his armour. He then walked over to his armour displayed in the shape of his muscular form. First, he removed the chest carapace from its stand and fitted it over his head. Next, he took the bicep carapaces and clamped the air-tight seals that locked them to the chest carapace together, before taking the forearm carapaces and clamping their seals to the bicep carapaces. He then took the thigh carapaces and fitted them on, before taking the shin carapaces and clamping their seals to the thigh carapaces in place. He then slipped his boots on, before fitting his gauntlets on and strapping his utility belt around his waist. He took his helmet and set it aside on a table while he proceeded to check all of his weapons; taking them apart, cleaning them, before putting them back together again. He loaded each of his weapons with a fresh magazine, still keeping three for his Carbine and two for each of his pistols spare.

He picked up each of his Pulse Pistols and holstered them at either side of his waist, before sliding his Pulse Carbine into its holster on his back. He then took his extra Carbine magazines and placed them in separate pouches along the front of his belt, and then took each of the two of the four spare Pulse Pistol magazines and put them in pouches surrounding one of the pistols, and did the same for the other.

He then took a large black bag made of smooth, thick material from his locker, untied the rope holding it shut, and placed it on the table where his weapons had been. "Kir, bring up the mission detail Shas'Vre Vior'La Kayon sent yesterday. It will be in my personal files," Shaserra said aloud to the AI.

"Acknowledged. Mission details appearing...now" Came the reply from the AI, before a large screen on the opposite wall turned on, and a mission detail message appeared on the screen. Shaserra read the whole message in ten seconds, before saying "Thank you, Kir, you can take down the details now," Shaserra said, before the screen went black again. He then took a myriad of different things from his massive locker: non-perishable foods; a blue drinking liquid which he liked to drink to keep himself hydrated; a HGG; various tools if any of his weapons should malfunction; and different parts for his weapons if a part needed to be replaced, to name a few items from the list of things he was ordered to take, as well as a few other items. Taking a sip of the blue drink before placing it back in the bag, Shaserra picked up his helmet and shouldered his bag. He placed his palm gently on the space on the locker where he had before, and the door slid downwards, before sealing itself shut. With everything done, Shaserra looked at the clock on the wall above the door: it was only 15 minutes before Shaserra was to be in the landing bay, it was enough time.

"Lock the room door after I've left, Kir, thank you," Shaserra said out loud to the AI that controlled all the features in his room, before he left his private room, heading for landing bay E5.

* * *

Shaserra turned the corner left down a relatively short-but-spacious corridor with a large door at the end. Reaching the end of the corridor, Shaserra stopped at the large door and looked up at the sign engraved in the wall overhead to make sure he was at the correct private landing bay: _**'Private Landing Bay E5'**_ the sign read. "Requesting access," Shaserra said aloud.

"Access denied. Run finger scan process," Replied a computerised voice. A red small square appeared on the grey wall to the right of the door and Shaserra ran his free index finger along it, before the square turned green. "Sorry for the delay, Shaserra. I had to be sure it was you. Kor'El Vash'ya Fio'shas is getting paranoid with the news of Imperial infiltrators and everything. Kayon is already inside waiting for you," came a more normal voice, and the door slid out of view to the right, and Shaserra stepped inside the landing bay, the door shutting automatically behind him.

Shaserra looked around the large bay: two doors at one end engulfed the whole wall, and Shaserra knew from past experience that they were the docking hatches; a smaller version of the Manta Carrier dominated the majority of the bay, and a Tetra anti-grav skimmer vehicle took up the remaining open space. Shaserra spotted a small space behind the landing craft with six tables arranged messily, the tables themselves being donned with food, weapons, ammo, various upgrades and an array of other items. Shaserra walked down the steps and round the landing craft to see his squad leader, Shas'Vre Vior'La Kayon cleaning his weapon with a cloth.

"Ah, Kayon, good to see you!" Shaserra called out, and in return the smaller Tau looked up, and greeted Shaserra with a smile.

"Shaserra, it is good to see you too, you're early," Kayon replied as Shaserra put his bag and helmet on the table next to Kayon, before clasping the offered hand and shaking it. "You're all ready, then?" Kayon said once he had shaken Shaserra's hand.

"Yes, Shas'Vre, I have exactly as your message detailed; food, drink, extra ammo, HGG, spare tools and weapon parts, everything else. One more thing, as well, Kayon?" Shaserra queried.

"What is it, Shaserra?" Kayon replied.

"In your mission details, you never exactly explained what the mission was. Only that I should meet you here in..." Shaserra paused to check the only clock in the landing bay, before he continued, "five minutes from now, and bring everything that was in the details."

"I know, I was going to brief you after you arrived, I was forbidden from explaining our mission over a detail. Kor'El Vash'ya Fio'shas has set a number of strict rules after we received news of the Imperial assassin infiltrating one of our own cruisers last year. Anyway, follow me," Kayon explained, before he led Shaserra into the smaller-than-usual Manta Carrier.

"I forgot to ask: why is this Manta Carrier smaller than usual?" Shaserra asked as he walked up the launch ramp into the jump dock of the Manta, before stopping before a screen that covered the entire wall.

"This is a newer model. It is designed for stealth missions, like this one. It only has a jump dock, pilot cabin and armament room. Even then, the armament room is directly linked to the jump dock via a ten metre corridor. Although it is better for recon missions, as it requires less power to run, so it makes less noise," Kayon finished, before saying aloud, "Kir, could you bring up the full orbital reconnaissance photos for this mission?"

"Including the details?" came a computerised voice.

"Yes," Kayon replied, and in seconds a map that spanned the entire screen flashed on. It was a top-down view of a massive river with two large hills at either side. On one side, there was an assortment of different coloured trees that blanketed the ground, and on the other - less steep hill - a few clusters of trees dotted the hillside, with two large outcroppings of rocks at either side of the hill. Shaserra was broken from his examining of the map as he realised Kayon had started talking.

"Now, this hill," Kayon began, pointing to the steeper of the two hills, "we have recovered samples of data that tell us of an underground system of tunnels that lead to Hive City Iyan; that's the main Imperial hive city on Menth. The doors to this underground system are located here," he explained, pointing to each of the outcroppings of rocks on the opposite side of the river, "and here."

"Easy, so we just have to infiltrate these labyrinths that will lead us to the Hive City, mark anything important and return. Simple," Shaserra interrupted.

"It's not as simple as it sounds. These tunnels have been blocked off after the last battle that took place on Menth. So our mission is to scout out the area up the river, to see if there are any other entrances that haven't been blocked off. We record anything we find, and evac back into orbit while we watch the attack. Further details aren't important," Kayon finished, before turning to leave the Manta to resume cleaning his weapon. Half way down the launch ramp, Shaserra called out without turning his gaze away from the map, "Why aren't they important?"

"Because, there are none," Kayon replied, smiling as he did, while Shaserra chuckled lightly as well at the joke.

"Thank you, Kir, you can turn off the screen now," Shaserra said before turning his gaze from the screen to exit the Manta. He approached the Tetra he had seen earlier and inspected it carefully, walking up and down each side.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Shaserra jumped at the interruption of his thoughts.

"What? Oh, yes, yes. Will we be using this Tetra in our mission?" Shaserra answered, half-listening to Kayon as he spoke.

"Of course, the river you saw in the map stretches for several hundred miles; you don't really expect us to walk all that way, do you?" Kayon said, before receiving a concerned look from Shaserra, "Don't worry, we won't be exploring the whole river, well...not today we won't," Kayon said.

"What do you mean 'not today'?" Shaserra asked uneasily.

"I mean, we'll be getting up at this time every day until we have explored the whole river. Specific orders from Shan'al," Kayon explained to his squad member and long-time friend, who shot him a look of tiredness, "You always were lazy, Shaserra, luckily you're not lazy when I need you most, in battle," Kayon chuckled.

"Heh, yeah I suppose that's true. Anyway, when do we drop?" Shaserra asked.

"Ten minutes, but first we need to load this Tetra onto the jump dock, would you mind loading it? I have to clean the rest of my weapons," Kayon said before turning and walking back to the table that he had laid his weapons on. Shaserra climbed into the pilot's seat and grabbed the two joysticks at either side of his legs. He tried to remember the last time he had piloted one of these; _it must have been about three years ago,_ Shaserra thought. He pulled up a small tinted glass box to reveal a set of three switches. If he remembered correctly, the switch on the far left activated the Tetra's main engine systems; the middle switch activated the anti-grav engines at either side of the pilot's seat; and the far right switch activated the...he couldn't remember, he couldn't even remember there being a third switch last time he was in a Tetra. "Kayon!" Shaserra called out to his friend, who looked up from cleaning his Pulse Carbine with a quizzical look, "What does the far right switch inside the tinted glass box activate?"

"Oh, that's for the Flechette Discharger, it was only recently installed, you won't remember it being there," Kayon shouted back before returning to his weapons. _Flechette Discharger, interesting, _Shaserra thought. He knew what they did; he had seen it first hand. A Flechette Discharger was an auto-reactive upgrade for Tau vehicles that released sharp anti-personal flechettes if the vehicle was approached by the enemy, like an alarm that rips the intruder to pieces.

Flipping the far left switch, Shaserra felt the main engines rumble underneath him, before becoming nothing more than a faint humming as they turned on. The screen in front of Shaserra flashed on and displayed a myriad of information. In the bottom left corner, a diagram of the Tetra cut up into sections was displayed; this was a warning indicator of sorts. Any damage the vehicle took, the part that was being shot at would flash orange, and if the armour of that part was to be penetrated, the section would permanently turn red; however, right now it was fine and so the whole diagram was green. Other things like the anti-grav engine status which was currently a faded white because it was inactivated; a current ammo counter for each of the weapons was displayed in the bottom middle of the screen, the twin-linked Pulse Rifles and two Seeker Missiles - both unfired, so far.

Flipping the middle switch, Shaserra felt the Tetra's anti-grav engines hum into life, before the slight motion lifted the Tetra off the ground. It really was amazing that this kind of technology was created, Shaserra had read of his race's history, how in 6,000 years the Tau had gone from spears and fire to colonizing planets and Pulse Rifles, it amazed Shaserra no matter how many times he read the ancient texts.

Knowing not to flip the last switch, Shaserra wrapped his hands around either side of the wheel, and pushed the wheel forward slightly. The Tetra's engines grew louder, though only slightly, as the Tetra was set into forward motion towards the launch ramp. Kayon watched as Shaserra tilted and turned the wheel to compensate for the lack of room as he guided the Tetra up the launch ramp and into the jump dock. Flipping the two switches off to save power, Shaserra climbed out of the Tetra and walked coolly up to Kayon, who had now finished cleaning his Pulse Carbine and was now nearly finished cleaning his Pulse Pistol. "You've a good memory. After three years of being driven around in a Devilfish I would have forgotten everything I knew about piloting a Tetra, but you managed to remember," Kayon said with a hint of admiration in his voice. He turned and set the last piece of his Pulse Pistol on the table he was leaning on, before reassembling the cleaned pieces with practiced efficiency in under a minute. "Looks like we're leaving," Kayon said as he holstered his weapons at his hip and on his back, before fitting his helmet on and proceeding up the launch ramp and onto the jump deck.

Shaserra walked calmly over to the table he had placed his helmet on and picked it up. Turning it the right way round, he slid it over his head and sealed the air-tight clamps, and in less than two seconds, his visor flashed on. After collecting his bag from the same table, he made his way onto the jump dock.

Kayon was busy locking the Tetra in place in the middle of the jump dock by the ground-clamps the dotted the floor of the jump dock. "Mind helping? There's only three left," Kayon asked Shaserra over the squad comm channel as he heard him come walking up the jump dock. Shaserra nodded and locked the last three clamps to the Tetra so it wouldn't budge while going planet side.

After all the clamps had been locked to the Tetra, something hit Shaserra, "Kayon, is it just us two going on this mission? Isn't that a little dangerous?"

"Is it just us? Of course it isn't, just let me go and get the other two additions to our squad," Kayon replied as he turned and made his way further into the ship, leaving Shaserra on the jump dock. He arrived back two minutes later with two drones following him, before saying "Meet the new permanent additions to the squad," pointing to the two drones.

Shaserra had seen drones in combat, but he had never in his seven years of service fought in the same squad as one. He had heard other Pathfinders talking about them, describing them as 'immense help'.

It was easy to tell what kind of drones the two in front of him were; the drone to the left of Kayon had a rail rifle attached to its side, meaning that it was obviously a Sniper Drone.

The drone on Kayon's right had a small box attached to its side, which signified that it was a Shield Drone.

"We have to program them with names, so we can communicate with them," Kayon said, "Let's call the Shield Drone Kor'ves and the Sniper Drone....hmm," Kayon said, thinking hard.

"Monat," Shaserra said, before Kayon turned to face him. Shaserra couldn't see but he knew Kayon would have a look of puzzlement on his face. "I know it usually refers to lone Battlesuits, but it's the only Sniper Drone in our team, so I thought it would be good," Shaserra explained, which received an understanding nod of the head.

"You program the Sniper Drone, I'll give the Shield Drone his name," Kayon said, before he took the Shield Drone and programmed its name using a small compartment on the Drone's underside, as Shaserra did the same. Both he and Kayon powered the Drone's down and put them safely in the Tetra.

Just as they did, a voice broke over the Manta's intercom, "Pathfinder team, we are about to depart; make sure you are all properly strapped in before we leave. I'm closing the launch ramp now," and just as the voice said, the launch ramp slowly ascended upwards and locked in place at the roof of the jump dock.

Shaserra and Kayon had already strapped themselves in the harnesses and were sitting, waiting for the Manta to leave the landing bay in silence. As expected, the Manta took off almost as soon as the launch ramp was locked in place, and Shaserra and Kayon felt the ether drives of the Manta roar into life as the Manta departed from the cruiser.

"Pathfinder team. ETA to land, five minutes, make sure you are all ready by that time, we can't stay long and risk being detected before the initial invasion," The Manta's pilot said over the ship's intercom.

"You heard the pilot. Mount up," Kayon said confidently over the squad comm channel, and at once he and Shaserra unstrapped themselves from their harnesses and made their way over to the Tetra using the roof handholds."Who wants to pilot and who wants to spot?" Shaserra asked Kayon as they clung to the Tetra to stop from falling. Silence filled the com channel as Kayon thought hard about it. "You can drive; I'll spot, that is, if you want to?" Kayon said after a while.

"That's what I hoped you'd say," Shaserra said excitedly as he climbed into the pilot's seat at the front of the Tetra, while Kayon undid the clamps locking the Tetra to the floor. Making sure to keep the two clamps at either side of his seat locked, Kayon climbed into the spotter's seat at the back of the Tetra.

Shaserra felt the Manta slow considerably as they neared the ground, before finally stopping completely. The launch ramp slowly descended while Kayon unlocked the last two clamps, before Shaserra flipped the first two switches inside the tinted glass box, and the Tetra hummed into life and lifted off the ground. "Pathfinder team, you are cleared for leave," the Manta pilot's voice sounded over the speakers in the jump dock, before Shaserra pushed the wheel forward, and the Tetra powered out of the jump dock and down the launch ramp, onto the apply named Visceral Highlands of Silva, on the Imperial-held world of Menth.

* * *

**Author's Note: **The second chapter is finished, and the third chapter is almost finished. Once again, Id like to thank _The Lone Hunter_ for his awesome help.

* * *


	3. Revelation

**Author's Note:** Ok, there's a little combat in this, not too much, but I promise, these first few chapters are just to get things started before the real battles begin. You'll see what I mean after reading this chapter.

* * *

_Battlegrounds: Awakening – Chapter Three Refined_ Chapter Three – Revelation

_Tau'cyr – M41 936.12_Kai'rotaa 1/6_Rotaa 63/80_Dec 5/10_Rai'kor 6:30_ Elite Fire Warrior Shas'Vre Vior'La Or'es Var-Mission group 2_Log..._

"Or'es! Or'es! Are you here!? Or'es!" The sound of a voice shouting over his comm-link shook Shas'Vre Vior'La Or'es Var into life. He groaned as he stretched his back, before replying weakly, "I...I'm here, who is this?"

"It's Suam! I'm here with Mont'yr and we're protecting M'yen, he's unconscious and we're being attacked by wave after wave of imperial guardsmen, I don't know where Fio'Tak is, or whether we can hold out for much longer. Wait...Mont'yr! Do you see that! Behind them! It's Fio'Tak's indicator, he's behind the line of guardsmen..." Suam's voice trailed off as she began shouting in joy.

"Suam! Suam! What's happening? What was that about Fio'Tak?" Or'es said as he cleared his throat, coughing roughly.

"That sneaky Fio'Tak, ha," Suam laughed heartily, "He was behind the attacking guardsmen, before he detonated some Imperial explosive he found at a camp due south of our position, or so he says."

"Wait, why can't I hear Fio'Tak? Or Mont'yr?" Or'es Var asked warily to the only person he could communicate with.

"The squad channel was scrambled with all kinds of frequencies after we broke through the canopy, but ours is a direct two-way link between our suits, so it looks like it's just me and you, nice, isn't it?" Suam said, ending with a flirtatious comment.

"Oooooh, look who likes Or'es," Fio'Tak's unexpected voice teased over the once private channel.

"Fio'Tak, how are you on this channel? I thought you created a two-way link between mine and Suam's suits?" Or'es Var asked, perplexed, and a bit annoyed.

"Hey, I created the channel, if I want to use it, I can, but this would be the first time," Fio'Tak replied coolly, "Anyway, where the heck are you, Or'es? And what about Cal Mont'da?"

Or'es Var was on his feet by now, checking to see if his weapons were still working. The mention of Cal Mont'da suddenly brought it to Or'es Var's attention, and he replied as he looked around for him, "He's just...By Acaya'Va'Denta..." Or'es' voice trailed off as he stared at the gruesome sight before his eyes. His eyes grew wide as his mouth dropped open.

Cal Mont'da's body was hanging lifeless, held in the air by a thick vine shared by two trees. Obviously, he had gotten tangled as he broke through the canopy in creepers, and one had wrapped itself around his neck repeatedly, squeezing off his helmet to reveal his white, bloodless face. Or'es had not been sick once in his whole life, but now a sudden urge to vomit was ever present in his stomach as he fought to hold it back.

All life had been squeezed out of Mont'da, and as that pressure had been forcefully pushed out, so too had his eyes, which were no where to be seen, leaving nothing but two deep, black abysses. Or'es Var quickly turned away before the sickly feeling could overwhelm him. With a deep sigh, Or'es Var replied, "He is no longer with us."

This sent shockwaves through the remaining members of the squad as Mont'yr was given the bad news. Several moments passed before anyone was able to speak, it was Fio'Tak who spoke up, "What happened?" He asked weakly.

"I'll spare you the gruesome details, but...he must have hit creepers as he broke through the canopy, and one of them found his neck," Or'es Var replied sadly, holding back vomit as the image of Mont'da's lifeless body hung suspended in the air flashed across his mind. He quickly erased his thoughts as he said, "Fio'Tak, can you give me a location on your position, the thick trees are blocking all of your indicators and I don't think I'll be continuing alone..." Or'es broke off.

Without speaking, Fio'Tak sent a signal of his and the rest of the squad through the link, and as soon as it had been sent, a green blip appeared on Or'es Var's helmet display. "Thanks, I'll be there in five, hold your position" Or'es said, before picking up Mont'da's ammo that lay underneath his hanging body and began silently weaving his way through the trees as the green blip guided him to the rest of his squad.

* * *

Or'es Var broke through the trees at a sprint into the clearing his squad was in. "Quickly! A squad of Imperial Storm Troopers are coming this way; they haven't spotted us, and let's not risk anymore casualties, so take cover and don't move!" Or'es barked over the now fixed squad channel as he vaulted the low stone wall everyone else had been using for cover, before merging himself into the thick grass with the rest of his squad.

Everyone watched through their visors as a squad of five Kasrkin clad in green carapace armour, all wielding Hellguns with Targeters, paced carefully into the small clearing already littered with Guardsmen corpses. In a standard V formation, all of the squad swept their weapons across the once-lush ground of the clearing; before they stopped twenty metres from the low wall Or'es Var's squad were hiding behind.

Or'es heard a low grumble coming from beside him, and realised that M'yen was standing up after regaining consciousness. Or'es did not want to endanger the rest of his squad, and so let his squad leader stand up. "Hold it! Xenos scum!" shouted one of the Kasrkin as the squad aimed their weapons at the seemingly-defenceless Tau. M'yen immediately raised his hands, revealing one Pulse Pistol in his left, aimed at the Kasrkin leader.

"No!" Or'es screamed as M'yen pulled the trigger twice, melting the Kasrkin Sergeant's head and helmet into one, before his body slumped to the ground.

Or'es immediately tackled M'yen to the ground as the rest of his squad began firing at the remaining four Kasrkin; but it was too late.

Rolling off of M'yen, Or'es noticed two holes in the side of M'yen's helmet. Quickly pulling off his squad leader's helmet, Or'es saw what he feared: two large, gruesome burn wounds scarred M'yen's temple. Unbelievably, M'yen was still breathing despite his severe injuries, and Or'es scrambled frantically for the field medi-kit on his belt. He ripped it from his belt and opened the small pouch, emptying the contents at his side. "Keep firing, but remember the protocol; keep the surrendered alive!" Or'es yelled at the rest of his squad over the comm channel as he fumbled to open the small cylinder containing cauterizer serum.

M'yen's hand brushed away the container. Or'es sat incredulously at the gesture just made by his Shas'El.

He _wanted _to die.

"But..." Or'es began to say, before a wave of M'yen's hand silenced him. It was clear he only had minutes left of his life, but yet he refused to continue living. In silence, M'yen reached for the scabbard on the front of his left shoulder, and removed from it the weapon that connected the whole squad, and placed it in Or'es Var's open palm. Or'es was lost for words as M'yen folded his fingers around Or'es' palm, symbolising the unofficial field promotion.

Or'es closed his eyes as M'yen's grasp loosened, and fell to the ground, lifeless.

Bowing his head, Shas'El Vior'La Or'es Var recited the rite of passage to Aun'o'T'au Acaya'Va'Denta silently, before removing a 6 inch blade from a scabbard on his belt and tossing it aside, then sliding the Bonding Knife into the scabbard; it fit perfectly . Or'es felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Suam with her hand laid gently on his shoulder, helmet held in her other hand, with a comforting smile on her perfect face. Or'es placed his hand over Suam's and stood up, looking down at Suam, "You saw that?" Or'es said faintly. Suam merely nodded, and then turned to look to her left, as did Or'es. Two of the Kasrkin had surrendered and were now sitting on the ground, talking to Mont'yr.

Still holding each other's hand, Or'es and Suam made their way over to Mont'yr and the two Kasrkin. "Get up," Or'es said, releasing Suam's hand and waiting for the Kasrkin to stand up. "You two surrender, do you?"

"Yes. We do not wish to-" One of the Kasrkin began, before out of nowhere, a whirring chainblade was chewing up the man's intestines, and a Pulse Pistol was aimed between the eyes of the other Kasrkin. Or'es held his face inches from the pained Kasrkin, "I did not ask for your reasons, dog!" Or'es snarled, before ripping the chainblade upwards, splitting the man's torso in two. He kicked the torn corpse to the ground, before turning to the remaining Kasrkin, the Pulse Pistol still fervently pressed to his head. "And what about you, hmm? Do you wish to join your brethren in death? Because that can be arranged," Or'es growled, before spinning both of his chainblades for emphasis.

"Shas'Vre-" Mont'yr began to try and reason with Or'es.

"Not anymore! I received a field promotion from M'yen shortly before his death; I run this squad now, and you follow my orders, understand!?" Or'es half-yelled. Mont'yr nodded weakly, before Or'es lowered his head. "I apologize, Mont'yr, that was uncalled for, I shouldn't have snapped at you like that."

"I understand your anger, _Shas'El,_ you have no need to apologize," Mont'yr replied more coolly. With a deep sigh, Or'es pulled the trigger on his Pulse Pistol, and the Kasrkin's face could no longer be recognized.

"Where is Fio'Tak?" Or'es asked, before a shimmer of light caught his attention, and he turned to see Fio'Tak standing next to him.

"I've been here all the time," Fio'Tak replied, no longer in the happy mood that usually accompanied him. Or'es nodded once in acknowledgment, before retracting his chainblades, holstering his Pulse Pistol, and removing his Pulse Carbine from its strap on his back and gripping the trigger with one hand while letting the Carbine swing freely at his side. "Fio'Tak, do you still remember where that Imperial Camp was that you took the explosives from?" Or'es asked in a more uplifting tone of voice to attempt to change the mood.

"Yes, I marked it on my radar. I'll transfer the marker to everyone's HUD," Fio'Tak replied, and as soon as he had finished, a red dot appeared in the northwest space on Or'es' radar, indicating the Imperial Camp.

"All right, we're finished here, let's move towards the camp and see what we can do from there. Fio'Tak, you take point, I'll sweep left, Suam, you sweep right. Mont'yr, you cover the rear. Four metre spread. If we run across any enemy patrols, let them pass, we're already down on two squad members, we can't afford anymore casualties. Let's move out!" Or'es barked over the squad channel, before everyone took up their given positions and made their way due northeast.

"Hold up!" Fio'Tak whispered over the squad channel, and the whole squad halted in their paths and dropped to their stomachs, weapons in front, scanning the immediate area. "Fio'Tak, what is it?" Or'es asked, guessing that he had seen the camp, since they were close to the red blip on their radar.

"It's the camp," Fio'Tak said, Or'es smiled.

"Everyone converge on Fio'Tak so we can decide how we're going to do this," Or'es said, before he, Suam and Mont'yr moved silently up beside Fio'Tak. Or'es looked around the camp, taking in every detail. A large, grey, three-storey rockrete building sat solemnly in the centre of the camp. Smaller two-storey rockrete buildings linked by second-storey corridors surrounded the entire perimeter of the larger building, which were further surrounded by a ten-foot chain-linked fence topped off with barbed wire. To the east side of the large building, a long dirt road stretched into the forest, on which supply trucks came up and down to and from the camp. Or'es watched as they drove round to the west side of the camp and off-loaded their cargo at the back of the surrounding buildings.

That was their best bet.

"All right, listen up," Or'es began, "Those trucks arrive at the camp at fifteen minute intervals, and leave at the same time. If we can jump into the back of one of the incoming trucks, we can infiltrate the camp and gain the upper hand, because after all, they won't be expecting an attack. We're too far away from the original drop zone.

"However, we'll have no chance with all of those cameras dotted about the camp. There is a main generator on the south side of the main building, closest to us. Fio'Tak, you have to take out the generator before we exit the cargo truck. Once out of the truck, Suam and I will make a dash for the main building, while you and Mont'yr enter the closest perimeter building and sweep the whole way round, before joining Suam and I in the main building. The fighting should be heavy, but they're shouldn't be too many Imperial Guardsmen. This camp is too far from any city to have real defences, and that will make it less of a priority to the enemy. I have no way of knowing for sure, though, so we can't take any chances just because of a hunch.

"We can't afford any mistakes here, if even one thing goes wrong, we'll all be dead, and I sure as hell won't go out today. Now let's do it," Or'es finished, before he, Suam and Mont'yr crept silently away towards the long dirt road, while Fio'Tak waited silently for the signal to cut the power.

"It's been fifteen minutes since the last truck passed; the next truck should be...Wait! I see the headlights, get ready," Shas'El Vior'La Or'es Var said to the three members of his squad who crouched next to him, waiting for the truck.

50 metres down the dirt road from the camp, Or'es Var, Suam and Mont'yr saw the headlights of an approaching truck as it slowed to turn the sharp corner, just before its front-left tire was blown out by a shot from Suam's Pulse Pistol. Immediately, curses and mutterings came from the two men in the front of the truck. The two men opened the doors to the truck and stepped down to inspect the problem. "Aw, crap! Looks like we got a popped tire. Baako, get the spare from underneath while I remove this one," One of the men said with a heavy accented voice, before he took a strange tool from the front of the truck and began removing the wheel, while the other man, Baako, scooted underneath the truck on his back to remove the spare tire.

Meanwhile, Or'es Var sprinted from the cover of the trees to stand by the back of the truck. He silently opened one of the two doors at the back of the truck, and then motioned for Suam and Mont'yr to climb in, before climbing in himself and closing the door behind him.

In all of ten seconds, Or'es, Suam, and Mont'yr had climbed into the back of the truck, and had taken up positions while they waited for the two men driving to fix the flat tire. With the slamming of doors being shut, and a loud rumble of the engine, the truck resumed its journey to the camp.

Feeling the truck stop for the second time – the first being when they passed through the gates of the camp – Or'es quickly gave Fio'Tak the 'Go' to cut the power, just in time. As soon as he did, the doors on the back of the truck opened. Or'es saw the two men as they turned, confused as to why the lights in the camp had gone out; because it was night, and there was no light at all now.

Or, at least not for the two men.

Or'es Var quickly loosed off two low-power shots into the back of each of the men's heads, before they dropped to the ground, kicking up dust as they hit. Or'es Var hopped out the back of the truck, quickly followed by Suam, and then Mont'yr. They all scanned their immediate surroundings and, after finding no other threats, Or'es Var keyed his comm-link, "Nice work Fio'Tak, but make sure you take control of the station, we can't have them using their backup power." Turning to Mont'yr, he said, "Wait here for Fio'Tak, he'll be here soon."

Signalling for Suam to follow him, Or'es Var took off, covering the hundred metre sprint to the wall of the main building in fifteen seconds, with Suam hitting the wall three seconds slower. She turned to face him as they switched to their private channel, which for once, actually was private, because Or'es had forced Fio'Tak to make it impossible for him to hear or talk through.

"So what's the plan?" Suam said eagerly, and Or'es could swear she gripped her Rail Rifle even tighter; she always did have a fiery passion for battle.

"There's a maintenance door ten paces round the corner to our right, that's our best shot. No one will be guarding that door, and from there we can follow the signs to the control room where we can see if there's anything valuable stored in the camp. Understand?" Suam nodded, "Go!"

Being the faster of the two, Or'es Var reached the door first and tried to open it, but to no avail. He pressed harder, but it wouldn't budge. "The door won't open. It's been sealed shut or something, hold on, I'll break it down," Or'es said, as he took fifteen paces backwards, and braced himself, before charging at the door.

Smacking into the door with his full strength, the door couldn't hold. Or'es Var fell onto his knees as he rammed the door off its ceramite hinges, before picking himself up, and rubbing his probably-bruised right shoulder. The noise would have made the forces inside alert as to an attack, though without light to see, they enemy would be merely wandering blind men. "Come on, we have to be quick, no doubt they'll be trying to fix the lights, and, now they know we're here...probably," Or'es said as he and Suam began following the signs on the walls, looking for the Control Room.

Mont'yr crouched silently on one knee, perched at the edge of the back of the truck, searching the area in front of him for any sign of Imperial presence. An Imperial Guardsmen would have trouble seeing in this darkness, but Mont'yr's squad all had hardwired blacksun filters, which lit up even the darkest spaces. A sudden shift of movement caught Mont'yr's eye, and he aimed his weapon at the now-visible Fio'Tak. "Ready? It's just you and me on this channel. Or'es Var and his _partner _are on their private channel, and since El'Or'es forced me to make it _impossible_ to join or hear their channel; it looks like we'll just have to score more kills than them, so it's lucky I have you," Fio'Tak said in his usual cheerful tone. Mont'yr merely shrugged, and jumped down onto the dusty ground to stand beside Fio'Tak. "Who takes lead?" Fio'Tak asked, before continuing, "Wait, you can, you have more battle experience. Well, lead the way."

Mont'yr shook his head and began jogging towards the nearest perimeter building. Beating him there, Fio'Tak had overridden the lock code on the main door and was already inside, waiting for Mont'yr to enter, before he shut the door behind him. Mont'yr and Fio'Tak made their way up the short corridor, where at the end it branched off at either side, with both sides leading up stairs. "Fio'Tak, you take the right set of stairs, I'll take this side," Mont'yr said over the comm channel, before they both began their ascent up the stairs.

Suam and Or'es turned the corner left, and finally found what they had been looking for. Ten metres in front of them stood a door, with a sign hanging above it that read _**'Control Room'**_. "This is it, the control room!" Or'es said eagerly as he jogged the rest of the way to the door with Suam.

"Now let's see if it's open," Suam said, before Or'es – Pulse Pistol in one hand, both Chainblades ready to be activated – pushed on the door. The door moved open, and Suam and Or'es strode in, scanning the room for any danger. "Wh-who's there? Don't move or I'll shoot you!" Or'es Var immediately swung his pistol towards the direction of the voice, and sure enough, there in the far corner of the room, was a curled up member of staff holding an auto pistol in one hand. Or'es turned to face Suam, before raising his index finger in front of his lips, indicating silence, before moving the hand to his shoulder, and clenching his hand into a fist, signalling that she stay where she is.

Silently, Or'es crept along the opposite side of the room toward the terrified staff member, who still had his gun pointed in Suam's direction, only not knowing she was there. As he approached the sitting man, he eyed the auto pistol, before, in one swift motion, kicked the auto pistol from the man's hand and lifted him up, inactivated chainblade inches from his throat. "Ah! Please! Don't hurt me, I just control everything in the base, I don't know anything about what they're keeping here, I swear!" pleaded the middle-aged man. Although he didn't realise it, the staff member just made this infiltration interesting. Or'es didn't really know what he was talking about, but he decided he should act like he does, "You said you control everything? There must be files containing details on what they're keeping, can you open these files?" Or'es said, before keying his comm-link, "Suam, contact Fio'Tak, tell him to give power to the Control room _only_."

"Sure thing, Or'es," Suam replied, before a barely audible _click _resounded in Or'es' ears, which signified that she had left the channel. Soon enough, the lights flashed on in the room, and the staff member gazed in shock at the sight of the Tau in front of him, shortly before seeing the chainblade held inches from his throat. He began screaming at once, before Or'es slammed his back against the wall behind him, shutting him up. "Now, can you?" Or'es said menacingly.

"Well, no...I, uh"

"Then you are of no use to me," Or'es said with a sigh, before dropping the man to the ground in a heap, and turning to say aloud so the man could hear, "Kill him." Suam realised the intimidating tactic Or'es was using, and so drew her Pulse Pistol and began walking towards the staff member to hold the barrel against the mans head, as Or'es walked slowly away. "Wait! Wait! I can open the files, I lied, ok. I can open them!" The man half-shouted. Or'es stopped with his back to the man, and keyed his comm-link, "Good work. You know me well, Suam. Let him do his thing."

Holstering her pistol, Suam hoisted the man up with some difficulty – unlike Or'es who had lifted him effortlessly – and pushed him towards the long machine that spanned the entire side of one wall in the room. The man moved to the farthest away part of the machine, closely followed by Suam and Or'es, before taking a key from around his neck and inserting it into a slot on the machine. Two monitors overhead that were black lit up, and displayed a wealth of information. Neither Or'es nor Suam could read Gue'la, and so Or'es activated the video-uplink feed on his HUD, and began recording all the information.

Or'es switched to the squad channel, as did Suam, and he sent the video to Fio'Tak, who watched intently, before replying a few minutes later. "You won't believe the amount of information they have here. It turns out, the labyrinths built underground here aren't of Imperial origin. It says that they're millions of years old. You know what this means..." Fio'Tak trailed off.

"Necrons."

* * *

**Author's Note:** Ok, so you should easily see what I mean. The next chapter has about the same level of combat, but after that, it'll be battles 90% of the time, for all you blood-crazy readers.


	4. End Of The Slumber

**Author's Note: **Alright, I know that I am long overdue a fight, but I promise, this will be the last downtime chapter for the rest of the story, os for as far as I can see in the plotline. Anyway, I've a couple things to address:

Thank you to all for your comments, truly, I thrive on them, so keep reviweing and telling me what I'm doing wrong so hopefully I can do it right. As for the lack of battle and own-side losses, that will all be fixed in the next chapter, which will se an equal amount of soldiers being slaughtered on both sides, and Or'es will be taking a lot more of the heat as well, thank you Furios0, for rightly pointing my biased writing out. To Links, the Tau speech is rather hard to write (Though it's getting easier for me), and The Lone Hunter has also pointed this out, and has given me pointers on what NOT to write. If I make any more speech errors just tell me, all of the reviews will help me to improve my Tau writing capabilities.

Also, thanks to Gree and exitus10 who reviewed as well, all comments/reviews/criticism is greatly appreciated.

* * *

Chapter Four – A Disturbance

_Tau'cyr M41 936.12_Kai'rotaa 1/6_Rotaa 64/80_/_Dec 0/10_Rai'kor 1:37_ Pathfinder Shas'Ui Vior'La Shaserra-Mission group 1_Log..._

Shas'Ui Vior'La Shaserra sat watching the forest speed by as he skilfully piloted the Tetra through the dense forest of the Visceral Highlands.

"Shaserra, I've spotted something, five miles north. Take us to the green blip on your radar that's just appeared," Shas'Vre Vior'La Kayon said, having to raise his voice louder than usual because of the speed Ui'Shaserra was driving at. Shaserra silently complied, and began pushing the Tetra as fast as it could go.

Minutes later, Shaserra flipped the first two switches off, before flipping the last switch on; activating the Flechette Discharger. Climbing out of the Tetra, Shaserra took with him the black bag of equipment Vre'Kayon had instructed him to bring, along with Monat, the sniper drone of his Pathfinder team, activating it as soon as he could. The small drone with attached Rail Rifle hummed into life and began floating around the Tetra with Kor'ves, the Shield Drone of the Pathfinder team. Shaserra felt a light tap on his shoulder, and turned to see Kayon standing with his Pulse Carbine held in his hands. "You ready?" He asked, gesturing with his Pulse Carbine to his left, towards a large outcropping of rock on the hillside. Shaserra took his Pulse Carbine from its straps on his back and grasped it with both hands, before nodding.

The four members that made up Silent Whisper Pathfinder Team - Vre'Kayon, Ui'Shaserra, Monat and Kor'ves – all made their way east towards what looked simply like a large boulder, however was actually built into the hillside. The large entryway had moss covering the whole of one side, and the other side was blocked from view by a large cluster of trees.

The whole team swung round to the front of the outcropping, to inspect it closely.

One large, cave-like entrance faced the team. What used to be two doors was merely a heap of ten-foot tall rubble, covered in blackened moss.

"Kor'ves, inspect the area past the rubble, then return," Kayon commanded the shield drone, which complied, and hovered away into the darkness of the millennia-old labyrinth.

"Vre'Kayon, is there really a point to this? The end of the river is only three kilometres north, and we will be finished of having to wake up early," Shaserra complained. Kayon turned his head towards Shaserra, and even through the helmet, Shaserra could see the quizzical look he was being given. "I mean, we've checked over thirty entrances along this river over the past four days, and every single time, we fail to find any entrance that hasn't caved in, yet we still look. I mean take this for example: even the doors have been knocked down, what chance is there that the whole passage hasn't been blocked off?" Shaserra finished, and just at that exact moment, Kor'ves came flying over the rubble, to stop abruptly in front of Kayon. "The area beyond the rubble is passable," said the Shield Drone in the usual computerized AI voice.

"Quiet," Shaserra said, before Kayon could start speaking. Laughing, Kayon began to climb up the rubble, closely followed by Shaserra, with Monat and Kor'ves hovering overhead.

As they reached the top of the rubble, Kayon slid down the steep rocks to land lightly and roll at the bottom, while Shaserra remained atop the rubble. He activated his hardwired Blacksun Filter, and at once, the whole entrance became visible.

"It looked so much smaller from outside," Shaserra mused as he gazed round at the forty foot-high walls, lined with unrecognisable symbols etched into the stone. Fifteen metres ahead, a door roughly ten feet in height that was dwarfed by the massive entrance and walls sat open. Shaserra slid down to the bottom of the rubble and rolled, scattering small pieces of debris and dust as he did so. He and Kayon followed the two drones, who could see further into the small doorway.

They entered the doorway after Monat and Kor'ves, to walk into a small room with stairs at the other end. "Looks like we're going deeper," Kayon said plainly, before he and the rest of Silent Whisper Pathfinder team began the long descent down the stairs.

"Look, the stairs are ending," Shaserra said as he pointed to the abrupt ending of steps twenty feet down.

After fifteen minutes of traversing down the stairs, Shaserra and the rest of team Silent Whisper reached the bottom, where they emerged into a long corridor with a faint glow of light emanating from an archway at the end, sixty metres away. "You see that?" Kayon said excitedly to Shaserra.

"It just got interesting," Shaserra said, uplifted about finally having found something. Shaserra, Kayon, Monat and Kor'ves began the journey towards the end of the corridor, before Shaserra tripped on something, nearly losing his balance. Quickly straightening himself out, Shaserra bent down to see what he had tripped. He picked up a chest-shaped piece of metal and examined it. He squeezed lightly, and to his amazement, the metal folded inwards with his fingers. As he loosened his fingers, the metal reformed to the exact shape it had before. Dropping it noisily, a few gasps were heard coming from the end of the corridor, and the glow disappeared and reappeared as shadows flitted by the archway. Shaserra stood up as he and the rest of Silent Whisper continued down the ancient corridor, Shaserra and Kayon making sure not to trip over the pieces of strange metal.

As they entered through the archway, a voice from across the room halted their movement, "Stop right there, intruders. What purpose have you here?" Shaserra and Kayon stared at the five grey-robed figures crouched at the opposite end of the room, all wielding exotic blades and small firearms. Shaserra took a moment to look around the room; a waist-height, cylindrical structure sat in the middle of the small room, from which an eerie green glow was pulsing from; to the left side of the room, five bed rolls were laid out on the ground, all surrounding a wooden table covered with an assortment of items.

"Answer, I say, or we shall slay you for attempting to disturb our master's sleep!" The same voice urged with a tinge of panic present in his voice.

"I don't think I will be answering anything, Gue'la," Kayon replied menacingly in low gothic, just as Shaserra saw what Kayon had already noticed: the five humans' faces. Each of them had dark grey-coloured skin, metal in appearance, with sharp red eyes that flitted from Shaserra to Kayon incessantly. "What!?" The same voice said incredulously; fear now creeping into his voice as he continued, "You can't talk to The Protectors like that!"

"Of course I can. I'm not answering any of your questions till you answer mine," Kayon replied calmly.

"I will not answer your questions, you...you...alien-speaking filth!" The metal-faced man responded, before Shaserra and Kayon opened up on the five men with their Pulse Carbines, quickly joined by Monat, and protected even faster by Kor'ves.

The fight lasted all of five seconds. In the first two, Shaserra and Kayon had melted two of the men's chests into pulp, just as Kor'ves had instantly shielded them. In the last three, Monat had decapitated the leader of the group as the superheated plasma bolt passed through his head and rebounded off the wall, burning the last two closest two the wall, which Shaserra and Kayon had subsequently killed off with two well-placed shots to the heart.

"Well, that was enlightening," Shaserra joked humourlessly as he moved to inspect the table, while Kayon stood over the circular stone structure. "What do you think they meant by 'The Protectors'?" Shaserra asked, not turning from his inspection of the table. Kayon did not answer; he was mesmerized by the swirling green energy inside the well.

"Kayon!" Shaserra said, louder this time. Kayon was broke from his trance and began to join Shaserra in searching the table for anything important. "I...um, I don't know," Kayon began, for some reason a little dazed after staring into the pit of green energy, "Maybe there's something deeper they're protecting?"

"Well, that's obvious, but what you think they're protecting, and did you see their faces? What was with the metallic look?" Shaserra replied, half-interested in Kayon's answer.

"We have to continue, to see for ourselves what it is that the gue'la were protecting," Shaserra said as he turned to the only other door in the room, situated behind the five dead bodies.

"NO!" Kayon exclaimed, stopping Shaserra in his tracks, "We don't know what's down there. I'm not risking my life just to see what the gue'la were protecting, we're going to return to command and report what we found back to O'Da, we haven't been sent on a suicide run!"

"What are you talking about!? We've came this far, we can't just turn back now. We've spent the last four days searching the whole river for something and now that we've found that something, you're just going to walk away from it? Well I'm sorry, but I didn't come here to walk away from it like a coward, I'm going deeper," Shaserra said proudly, before turning round and moving over the dead corpses and through the doorway, deeper into the labyrinth, leaving Kayon with Monat and Kor'ves, standing dumbfounded.

* * *

As Kayon reached the top of the stairs, cursing and muttering to himself about Shaserra, with Monat and Kor'ves following faithfully behind him, what he saw shocked him to the core. Standing between him and his only exit, was a seven foot tall human-shaped machine, wielding a long, ancient pole with a bronze, curved blade at the top. A long tattered robe hung from its shoulders, brushing lightly against the hard stone floor. Unprovoked, Monat fired at the machine, only to have the bladed-pole penetrate its armour seconds later, before it reappeared in the machine's hand.

Kayon slumped to the ground, kneeling, and dropped his Pulse Carbine, before the scythe was flung at Kayon, sending him flying backwards and impaled him against the wall behind him, cracking his ribs as it held him against the wall. Gasping for breath, Kayon watched helplessly as Kor'ves was shattered to pieces by another machine that had recently appeared, sending a deadly burst of green energy from its similar-looking weapon to the other machine, to obliterate Kor'ves without any difficulty.

Kayon's vision began to fade as his futile attempts to breathe in air left him dying. He cursed as he realised that this was exactly what he had been trying to avoid by leaving, but instead, he was dead, and Shaserra was still alive. As he watched the scythe that pinned him to the wall disappear, only to reappear in the first machine's hand, he felt the painful impact as his head connected with the ground, cracking his skull with a _crunch_. The feeling of warm liquid against the side of his head soothed him as he slipped into unconsciousness, before dying in the entrance to the labyrinth, taking the secret of the labyrinth's occupants with him.

* * *

After an hour of aimless wandering, Shaserra was close to giving up. After having found nothing, Shaserra wished he had left with Kayon, to be back with the Kor'vattra, safe and warm in his private room. Instead, he was stuck in this damp, cold, impossibly dark labyrinth, with no means of leaving. The sound of small clicks resounding in a staccato rhythm startled him, and he immediately pressed his back to the wall as it turned sharply to the left. He waited a few seconds, before rushing round the corner and through an archway into a massive hall with large, green rectangles lining the walls. However, the green energy doors were not what caught his attention; instead, at the very end of the massive hall, sat a massive crypt, dotted with strange alien symbols. A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he swivelled round, pulse carbine aimed in the direction of movement.

All of a sudden, the sounds of hundreds of screaming beings filled his head, though he could see nothing as he spun round. He dropped his carbine to the ground and ripped off his helmet and began clawing at his head, trying desperately to make the sounds stop. Then horrible, gruesome images of dead carcasses, disfigured in many different ways, began to flash in his vision, over and over again, till Shaserra was nearly screaming. He couldn't take it, the images, the screaming, and to end the nightmare that was reality, Shaserra unsheathed his pulse pistol and opened his mouth, weeping vehemently as his mouth closed round the barrel of the pistol as it pressed against the top of his mouth.

A pulse pistol shot rang out in the silent labyrinths.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Were you expecting this? I was. It was funny because Furios0 made his comment just after my first draft of this chapter, in which I had Kayon killed the same way as he is in this final edit, and Shaserra was stripped of his body and encased as a dull Necron warrior, where I could actually write from a necron perspective without it being completely null of talk. However, this option - I think - seems to suit Furios0, and with the part about Shaserra becoming a necron warrior, I knew that there would be subsequential reviews of endless flames and complains saying that that isn't how it is done. I have no way of knowing whether that can be done or not, which is why I decided to write that at first, though I came to my senses and edited it out in the later draft. I won't have any complaints about me merely mentioning this, as that really annoys me. It's not in the story, so I don't want to hear about it. End of story.

Anyway, the first battle of _Battlegrounds: Awakening_, takes place in

**Secure...At Last**

I know, it's a bad name, but at least it has some action.


	5. Secure

**Author's Note: **Hello again! I know I'm long overdue an update, but let me explain. My laptop completely died, and whether it was the battery, a virus, or whatever else, I'm not sure. It took a while to get it fixed, to say the least, and I just got it back - fixed - about a week ago, and so here is my newest chapter, and yes, it does have action in it.

I've not heard from TLH in like, ages, and I'm guessing none of you have either, since he hasn't updated his story since the last time I did, so don't ask me, because I honestly have no clue.

Anyway, read and review, but most of all, enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Five – Secure

_Tau'cyr – M41 936.12_Kai'rotaa 1/6_Rotaa 65/80_Dec 5/10_Rai'kor 8:43_ Shas'O Vior'La Da A'masa/Shas'El Vior'La Or'es Ta _Log..._

"Where in the name of Acaya'Va'Denta is El'M'yen and his forces!" bellowed Shas'O Da A'masa as he fired off a trio of smart missiles from his XV81 battlesuit which, using the hardwired target lock smashed into three separate targets. One, an Imperial Guard walker vehicle, the second and third both separate squads of Imperial Guardsmen. The Imperial Walker keeled over after both its legs had been blown off, and landed with a screech of metal as it skidded forward along the hard granite rock plateau.  
The initial Tau invasion had seen a small amount of Tau dropping into two separate areas: one was Shyl Space Port, led by O'Da, which was built over a massive slab of impenetrable granite rock; the other being a large area of dense forest, led by El'M'yen, both lying west of Hive City Migrus; Menth's largest Space Port for off-world trading.

"His forces should have captured the Jarbon Forest by now and have moved in from the west to crush the opposition! But yet here we are, stuck fighting, losing avoidable numbers, this is unacceptable!" fumed O'Da, when all of a sudden, static deafened him momentarily, before a shaky voice broke over his comm-link,

"O'Da...El'M'yen's successor...Jarbon Forest to surrender....Fio'Tak, fix the ch-" the voice abruptly ended.

"Repeat your message soldier, your transmission is filled with too much static!" O'Da said into his comm-link as he advanced with his Fire Warrior bodyguards, his flamer belching lit promethium liquid at the Imperial blockade, the fire licking at the heads of the guardsmen.

"O'Da, this is Shas'El Vior'La Or'es Ta, I am El'M'yen's successor. I have managed to force the Imperial resistance here in the Jarbon Forest to surrender, and I have already established a mobile command. Half my forces will come in from the west, swing round to the north, and attack from the rear, trapping your enemy. They will have no option but to surrender or be slaughtered. I will be personally leading these forces; I never turn down the option to fight," finished El'Or'es.

"El'Or'es, congratulations on your promotion and swift victory, though I am sorry to hear M'yen has passed away. Though, we need your assistance immediately, what is your ETA?" O'Da asked, his mood gone from furious to melancholy at the news.

"I can see the west gates of the space port now; we should breach the north gates in less than ten minutes. I have requested a Barracuda squadron for assistance, they are sending down Dark Sphere Squadron," El'Or'es calmed O'Da, whose mood now rested at relieved.

"Thanks to you for your assistance, El'Or'es, you are a worthy replacement to El'M'yen. I look forward to seeing you in battle," replied O'Da, hopeful as to the prospect of this new young Knight.

With renewed ferocity, O'Da powered his jet packs, flying him over the blockade to land in front if ten scared-looking guardsmen. Before any retaliation could be made, O'Da let loose with his right-hand burstcannon, melting the entire squad to the heavy blockade they had set up. As he felt more las-shots bounce harmlessly off of his energy shield, a loud screeching could be heard from the sky.

O'Da looked up into the night sky, smiling, with his blacksun filter activated, to stare at five familiar shapes swooping down at incredible speeds as they hit the atmosphere of Menth.

**Sky above Shyl Space Port**

"Searching...searching...target lock confirmed," Kor'Vre Eldi'Ka said over the inter-craft comm-channel, "reverse strafing run on coordinate's three-zero-six-one-seven, Imperial armoured column moving in from the west over the fuel silo fields. Keep the lines of fire tight, the fuel stored in the silos is highly volatile. Spheres two, three, reverse side with me; four and five, straight side."

The rest of Dark Sphere barracuda squadron replied with a unanimous, "Understood, Kor'Vre," shortly before carrying out the given orders. Dark Sphere's two, three and lead banked down and left, while Sphere's four and five powered their Ion drives to full speed as they sped forward, over the fuel silo plains of Shyl space port.

The five barracudas swiftly changed directions as the Imperial armour column of heavy tanks rumbled along the granite roads. In synchronization, the whole barracuda squadron swooped low to the ground, locking their drone-controlled burst cannons onto the double-line of Imperial Malcador heavy battle tanks. "Sphere lead, Sphere four and I are beginning our r-" One of the barracuda squadron pilots began to say, before he was cut off by a stream of autocannon rounds that tore into his craft's ion drives, sending the barracuda plummeting downwards in a trail of smoke and crashing into the front of the armoured column of heavy battle tanks, destroying the three at the head of the column.

"Sphere Five is down, I repeat; Sphere Five is down, concentrate fire on the anti-air armour at the back of the column." Eldi ordered over the comm-channel. She watched as the approaching barracuda began spinning wildly, trying to avoid the non-stop barrage of autocannon shells that the Hydra anti-aircraft tanks spat up at it. "There's too many to avoid! I'm pulling out!" shouted the desperate barracuda pilot as he pulled his barracuda upwards, and began flying back into orbit. A lucky shot from one of the Hydra tanks caught his craft's left ion drive, and as the pilot's barracuda erupted in a ball of flame, Eldi did her best to drown out the screams of the burning pilot as he plummeted down towards the fuel silo plains, encased in his burning metal coffin.

"Sphere Two, bank left, Sphere Three, bank right, I'll sweep the middle. Let us avenge our fallen brethren!" Eldi roared into her headset as the pain of losing two members of her squadron gripped her heart. She set a course of fire for her drone-controlled burst cannons, and pushed the crafts' controls forward, forcing her barracuda into a dive, just before she hammered the burst cannon controls.

In less than a second, the three barracuda's were flying in line, spitting blue superheated plasma at the line of Imperial tanks. She guided the target lock for her seeker missiles onto the two Hydra tanks at the very back of the armoured column, and a brief double-_click_ signalled Eldi that they had locked on to their targets. "Target locked. Firing all missiles. The area above the anti-aircraft tanks are a red zone until cleared. Firing...now!" Eldi relayed to her remaining squadron, before launching all four of her seeker missiles at the two Hydra tanks. The four missiles streaked out of their pods, leaving a trail of smoke behind them as they split up into two pairs, each pair heading towards their own Hydra tank.

Eldi was about to pull her barracuda backup to a reasonable altitude, but she was stopped as her seeker missiles struck their targets dead on. However, one of the two missiles heading for the left Hydra bypassed the armour as if it were nothing, before exploding in the ammunitions stockpile at the back of the tank. The resulting explosion was immense. A massive explosion swept upwards to twenty feet, before the Hydra exploding next to it pushed it another thirty foot higher, before plummeting back down with a wave of fire, pulling down Eldi's barracuda with it. The rest of the tanks that were left exploded one after the other in a chain of unbelievable horror. Spheres Two and Three were caught in the resulting explosions as well, both immediately dying on contact as they crashed into the hard, solid granite rock.

Eldi struggled with her controls to escape the burning burial which awaited her below, but her ion drives were all but burnt out from the intense heat below. Eldi couldn't see her fate as her barracuda slammed backwards onto the remains of one of the Hydra tanks. She was shook from her harness and flung sideways out of the cockpit, smashing her face through the reinforced glass of her cockpit, and she fell ten feet to the ground. Head first.

**Shyl Space Port, somewhere near the North Gate**

Shas'El Vior'La Or'es Ta fired his hand-mounted burst cannon into the midst of defending Imperial Guardsmen. The blue superheated plasma energy burnt through three of the guardsmen's armour and skin as if it were mere paper, as the three unlucky targets died horribly. Or'es' helmet-protected ears were subjected to the sound of three Tau fire warriors being pumped full of crimson las-shots as they fell to the ground to his right. _Three for three,_ Or'es thought as he fired the jetpack on his Prototype XV23 Battlesuit. The new prototype battlesuit came kitted-out with a shield generator, advanced target lock, multi-tracker, advanced sensory equipment, four shoulder-mounted smart missiles, and an automatic cauterizer dispenser; this all-new feature not present within the previous XV22 battlesuit was designed to pump cauterizer serum to any penetrated area of the armour, immediately numbing the pain, allowing the wearer of the suit to continue fighting.

Despite the missiles and burst cannon, Or'es' favourite weapon was the gift of a decorated power sword, which was given to him personally by Aun'El Dak'e'shi; the senior member of the Shan'al here in the Kihrean Sector of Imperial-controlled territory.

Or'es targeted a distant group of two Leman Russ battle tanks that were causing havoc with his own infantry, having already claimed over fifteen kills in the last five minutes. Or'es loosed off all four of his smart missiles as he watched as they guided themselves towards their given targets. Through the haze of smoky machines and firing guns, Or'es' advanced optical equipment picked out the missiles as they struck the Imperial tanks in a magnificent display that killed the occupants of the vehicles and any soldier within five metres of it.

A multitude of crimson-las-shots pounded against his shield, disappearing with a quiet _fizz _of red energy as the shield soaked in the shots. Or'es located the shooter and raised his left hand towards them. Through his visor, he could see the target's face turn white, just before Or'es made sure he didn't have a face at all. Scanning the area for any immediate targets, Or'es found a small group of flashy Guardsmen, probably the elite 'Storm Troopers' as they were called, hiding behind a rockrete barricade, using an autocannon mounted on the barricade to mow down his fire warriors. Firing his jetpack, Or'es shot twenty metres above the battle, before flying forward till he was hovering over the rapidly-firing storm troopers. He lowered to fifteen metres above ground, before one of the guardsmen flicked his head up and stared incredulously at the floating, black armour-clad figure above him.

Before the guardsmen could scream, Or'es crushed his head as he deactivated his jetpack and came slamming down on the guardsmen, turning him to nothing more than a statistic to be recorded later on. Over the roar of the autocannon, the rest of the now-four man squad didn't see the gruesome demise that their squad mate had just suffered, and were still firing avidly at the oncoming Tau. With a quick flick of his right wrist, Or'es decapitated the nearest trooper, before plunging his power sword into the back of another. The blade ruptured out the chest of the guardsmen, with a crackling of red energy as it pierced his heart. Withdrawing the blade, the nearest trooper turned to face the eight-foot behemoth, his face turning blank as he stared up at his fate. Or'es crushed the troopers' bare head with a clench of his fist as if it were nothing, before swinging his power sword in an upward slice, halving the autocannon firer from pelvis to head like a hot knife through butter. The energy field surrounding the weapon crackled with delight – if such a thing were possible - as it ripped through the troopers' skull.

Pressing the activation rune on his power sword, the red energy field flickered out of view, before Or'es sheathed the decorated weapon in its large scabbard at his waist, as he turned to survey the damage so far; it had been almost thirty minutes since his Hammerhead gunships had tore down the north gate with their ion cannons, and since then, he had lost nearly half of his invading force, but the Imperial's had lost only slightly more as a result of the surprise flanking manoeuvre. All in all, the Imperials had fought bravely, despite being stormed from two sides. What was left of the Imperial resistance here in Shyl Space Port had surrendered, not desiring the death that had struck so many of their friends and fellow soldiers. Especially when they had a choice.

This one fact plagued Or'es' mind for so long, but never had he come to any plausible reason other than blind faith. Why? Why resist and die for a rotting carcass when there is a new life to live? One of freedom, where they are not forced to fight like dogs for their 'Emperor'.

Or'es was shaken back to reality as a hand clasped his shoulder, "El'Or'es! Excellent timing, my forces would have been overrun had you not intervened. I am, deeply, truly sorry for the loss of El'M'yen, I understand he named you as his successor? An irrational question, yes, but I must know, why?" O'Da said, first happily, then turning to a melancholy tone.

"In all truth, I am unsure of that reason myself. He was unable to speak, his last actions were placing this," El'Or'es unsheathed a short war-knife from an ornate scabbard on his belt, holding it out in his gauntleted palm, displaying the inscribed-blade to O'Da, "in to my hand. No explanation, no apparent reason, nothing. I have pondered over that myself, and I do not question your hesitance, for I have spent less time as a Shas'El than any of my previous squad, but I assure you, Commander; when the battle presents itself, I will not let you down." Or'es finished, before sliding the bonding knife back into its scabbard, and extending his hand towards O'Da, who immediately grasped his forearm with his own battlesuit gauntlet as El'Or'es grasped his forearm, in a warrior's grip they had both learned back when they were merely Shas'Saal on the training grounds of Vior'La. "I know you will not, El'Or'es," O'Da spoke up, "I assume you have news to tell me other than your success in capturing the Jarbon Forest?"

With a deep sigh, which O'Da clearly heard, El'Or'es replied, "We will speak of this with Aun'Li, once we have established a suitable base. These are pressing matters."

**Several hours later, Shyl Space Port, Su'Nars Uash'o **_**(Grey Stone Command) **_**Command Building**

Shyl Space Port had been turned into a sort of headquarters for the Tau. With hundreds of buildings already intact, the leaders of the Su'Nars Uash'o had had a lot of choices for a main command building. In the end, a large single storey building had been chosen, simply for its pristine quality. A circular room with a glass dome above it was chosen as the council room.

Within two hours of capturing the space port, half of the Tau forces in the Kihrean Sector had already landed, and had been assigned to a certain part of the port. The following half-hour had seen the space port unable to house anymore soldiers, so every time a new ship landed, Devilfish transports conveyed them to Jarbon Forest, where a mobile command had to be set up. While all of this was happening, earth caste workers were clearing the recent battlefield of debris and enemy carcasses, to allow room to manoeuvre through the once-clean streets.

El'Or'es sat cross-legged in his private quarters, which contained nothing but a roll-out mat, Or'es' prized power sword – which he had named _Macabre_ - , his XV23 prototype suit which was held in place by clamps and iridium strings attached to the floor and ceiling, and the thin black robe that Or'es wore. A brief knock on the door – two quick _raps_ - switched Or'es back to his senses, though he still kept his eyes closed. "Enter," he called calmly, before the door hissed open, and in stepped a female figure clothed in a similar black robe to Or'es', before the door closed shut behind her.

"You seem peaceful, considering the recent battle that has just taken place," A familiar voice resounded in the once-silent room. Realising who it was, Or'es' eyes snapped open, before he rose to his feet, his hands never moving. "It is good to see you again, Suam," Or'es said, before tightly hugging his old squad mate and close friend. "Hmm, the XV23 Prototype, very impressive, I trust everything works well?" Suam admired rhetorically, "I was awarded the XV22 Battlesuit, which as you know is now used widespread after O'Shaserra's successful use of the prototype during the Dark Crusade", she continued, stepping back to take a look at the XV23 Battlesuit held upright in the corner of the room. "Your room is sparse; I see you do not like the luxuries of Command?" Suam mused, a smile spreading across her light blue lips.

"Did you come here merely to mock my room?" Or'es asked jokingly.

"Oh, no; O'Da and Aun'Li request your presence in the council room, and I am the escort," Suam replied, just remembering what she was sent here to do, before propping her hand on her hip and jutting her elbow away from her stomach, insisting her superior should lock arms with her. Or'es smiled playfully and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, squeezing her close, before they left the room, talking and laughing.

XXX

"This is where I must leave you," Vre'Suam said in a melancholy tone as she and Or'es neared the double doors that led to the council room.

"You will not be joining us?" Or'es questioned, saddened that Suam had to leave. Her smile drooped to a sulk, before she replied.

"Sadly, yes, though you have to promise to see me again before we leave for the next battle," She teased.

"I swear to Aun'Va I will see you again before we depart, Vre'Suam," Or'es replied with a smile, and he and Suam hugged intimately, before Or'es watched her as she fluttered away round the corner, turning once to look back over her shoulder. Straightening his black robe, he turned and pushed open the two doors leading to the conference room. The setting sun outside the command building shimmered off the reinforced glass dome the made up the ceiling of the conference room, casting the whole room in a deep gold. Or'es focused his eyes on two seated figures in the centre of the room, seated around a glistening white table adorned with three glasses filled with blue liquid. As soon as Or'es entered the room, both heads snapped up to look at the newcomer. Or'es made his way over to the table, where he was met by Aun'Li and O'Da, both in similar black robes to Or'es, although Aun'Li's was thicker and more ornamented. "Or'es, good to see you finally arrived. Commander Shadow and I were merely discussing the next move we should make in the campaign, though now you are here; we can begin the real purpose of this meeting. Please, sit," Aun'Li said with a voice that demanded respect, before standing up and shaking hands with Or'es, pointing to a seat across from him. Or'es shook hands with O'Da quickly before taking a seat.

"Now, you surely no doubt know why you are here, I presume?" Aun'Li began. Or'es nodded. "Good, then we can skip the formalities. Please explain what happened from the initial invasion of the Jarbon Forest, up to when you aided Commander Da in seizing this space port."

"The initial attacks were going as planned. El'M'yen had decided to drop the infantry to secure a landing zone, before the battlesuits and hammerheads were dropped off, before the combined battlesuits, hammerheads and surviving infantry assaulted the fortress due west of the drop zone. I was, as you probably know, part of El'M'yen's personal bodyguard. I and the rest of his personal guard were with him when we dropped, however, ten seconds into the drop, we were separated. My jet pack failed and I fell through the trees. When I woke up several minutes later, I found Vre'Mont'da choked by vines, and the rest of the group were defending El'M'yen's unconscious body. I regrouped with the squad, just at the same time we ran into some elite Guardsmen. El'M'yen woke up and was killed, shortly after handing me the bonding knife which connected our squad, as a sign of my promotion. I took control of the squad and we made our way to an Imperial camp that Vre'Fio'Tak had found earlier.

"It was after we infiltrated the camp that we found out that the labyrinths that run underneath all of Menth's major cities, were housing a Necron legion. We made our way back to the main drop zone and took control of the forces there, where we secured the drop zone and landed the hammerhead gunships and battlesuits with minimal losses. Then, we advanced through the forest towards Jarbon Estate, which was once a house of a very wealthy merchant of this planet, but had been commandeered by the local garrison forces of this planet as a front-line base.

"With the aid of barracuda squadrons, we overran the estate and I set up a mobile command centre. This was when I was granted the XV23 prototype battlesuit, power sword and official recognition as a Shas'El, by you, Aun'Li," Or'es gestured towards the Ethereal, who nodded approvingly, "Before long, I set out with half of the initial invasion force, leaving half behind as a safeguard for the area, to assist Commander Shadow in capturing this space port," Or'es finally finished. Both Aun'Li and O'Da took their time in mulling what El'Or'es had just told them. After several minutes of contemplating, Aun'Li was the first to speak, "You are sure that these labyrinths contain a Necron legion? This is not something to laugh about; a Necron legion poses a great threat to our aspirations of conquering this world. You realise this, do you not?"

"Of course, Ethereal, I have the evidence stored in my personal files," Or'es replied, a little hurt that the Ethereal would think he was joking about this, though he dismissed it and continued, "I will show you." Or'es fumbled at the hip of his robe for the concealed pocket there, before finding it and slipping his hand in. He pulled out a small black disk, before lifting up a panel on the table in front of him, which revealed a miniature screen, before tapping the screen several times and then entering the small disk into a drive just under the screen. After tapping one more button, a large circle in the centre of the table slid out of view, and an almost life-like image of a video feed playback appeared ten centimetres above the hole. A lean, brown haired human appeared on screen, wearing a long white coat. The human was standing in front of several tanks filled with a silver liquid. Inside the tanks were different pieces of metal that, if arranged together, would form a metal human. Or'es could not understand what the human was saying, as he had not been taught Imperial gothic during his training, but instead had opted for hand-to-hand training. It was fortunate that both Aun'Li and O'Da could speak low gothic.

The video lasted for several minutes, in which the man was shown walking up and down a row of tanks containing all different parts of a Necron. Even the infamous Necron Gauss weapon was in its own tank. When it ended, the image disappeared, and the circle reappeared and filled the hole. "This changes everything," O'Da murmured. Aun'Li faintly nodded his head in agreement as he stared off into the back of the large hall. Or'es picked up the glass in front of him and sipped the blue liquid, before coughing roughly. _Some drink,_ thought Or'es as he cleared his throat of the repulsive taste.  
"Or'es, if you could excuse us please, O'Da and I need to talk about this privately. O'Da's second-in-command will be touching down in landing bay 4 soon, will you please wait for him and send him through here, thank you," Aun'Li said in a hushed voice. Obviously, the revelation of a Necron legion had had a larger impact on the Ethereal than on Or'es.

"Of course, Ethereal," Or'es said, before standing up, bowing, and exiting the council room to find Suam and wait for O'Da's second in command to arrive.

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**Final Note: **Yup, so that's chapter five - my longest chapter yet, too - and now that the Tau have finally secured a foothold on Menth, where will they go from there? Find out in **Chapter Six: Pressing Forward**


	6. Finding Out

**Author's Note: **Ok, instead of **Pressing Forward**, I decided to write a little character developement chapter. But don't worry, I've put in some action as well, so it's not all boring. Thank you for your reviews TLH and Furios0 (again), and I'm sorry to hear about your accident TLH.

Anyway, in response to Furios0, yes, that wasn't my favourite chapter to write, after the battle it was just kind of repeating everything that had happened in the story so far, which was, if I may criticize my own writing, was rather boring. Also, I never played Doom (Shock-horror, I know), so I have no clue what IDKFA and IDDQD mean, so if you could explain by comment, or you could PM me, whatever best suits you, that would be great, I really want to develop this into a better-than-average, common story.

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Chapter Six – Finding Out

_Tau'cyr – M41 936.12_Kai'rotaa 1/6_Rotaa 66/80_Dec 3/10_Rai'kor 5:21_Shas'El Vior'La Or'es Ta _Log..._

**Shyl Space Port, Combat Arena**

Shas'El Vior'La Or'es Ta stood outside the ring in the Combat Arena, watching as two Tau sparred in armed combat. He looked round him, to see that he was the tallest Tau here, by a least a few inches, and also the most muscular. He and the rest of the sparring combatants wore tight-fitting fatigues that hugged their blue skin, leaving only the hands and face showing. On his feet, Or'es was wearing light running shoes, were as the rest of the combatants around him chose to wear large, unwieldy, steel toe-capped boots. Most of the combatants chose to use some kind of weapon, whether it be a sword, knife, dagger, or whip, as there were certain types of rounds that two or more combatants could take place in; First Blood, the winner of this round was decided by being the first one to draw your opponent's blood; Gauntlet, this was a multi-combatant round, and was won by being the last Tau conscious; and the last was the Eternal Rest round, to win this, you had to be the last Tau alive. An Eternal Rest round was scarcely seen, and Or'es had only seen one in which the losing Tau was brutally dismembered by his opponent; such was the fierce brutality of Eternal Rest rounds.

A dispute between any number of Tau was resolved in the Combat Arena, or by discussion, if the involved Tau did not want to resort to physical violence. Of course, not all rounds were fought because of disputes; some Tau merely used the Combat Arena to improve their close quarters fighting. Personally, Or'es just outright preferred close combat to shooting, unlike practically every other Tau.

For a weapon, Or'es used iridium vambraces, which were wrist-guards engraved with _Or'es_ on one, and _Suam,_ on the other; Or'es had received them from Suam, funnily enough, for his last birth-anniversary a month ago, however, Suam was the only one to give him a gift, as he hated large celebrations. They had replaced his old metal ones, which were damaged from the years of blocking sword strikes.

Or'es was knocked from his senses as he was pushed by someone from behind him. He turned calmly to look down at the Tau who had pushed him; a 5"5 slightly-muscled Tau was standing, two sword sheaths on his back, fists clenched at his sides, muscles tensed, and an angry frown on his face as he glared seven inches up at Or'es' face. "Your problem?" Or'es asked serenely.

"My problem? I think you would know better than anybody, you bastard," the small Tau replied in a gruff voice.

"If I knew I wouldn't have asked, now _what _is your problem?" Or'es asked again, irritated at this Tau's use of unnecessary language.

"You really have no conception, do you?" The Tau said, before laughing lightly, though Or'es knew the laugh was merely a ruse, "You stole my partner from me, perhaps you know Suam?"

The mention of Suam peaked Or'es' curiosity of the subject, and he decided to probe further. "Suam? Of course, she was part of my squad when I served under El'M'yen, Aun'Va rest his soul. What does she have to do with you losing your partner?"

"Suam _was_ my partner, you imbecile! One month ago, she broke our Bond Oaths, and she said that she had met her true love, and that he was a 'Powerful Soul' in her life, and one that she could not live without. It is a coincidence that your name translated into Imperial low gothic, means 'Powerful Soul', isn't it? ISN'T IT!" The Tau fumed, "How long I have waited for the moment to find you, how long I have waited to tear you limb from limb...So long...I challenge you to an Eternal Rest!"

Or'es' heart was a mixed feeling of emotions; absolute bliss at hearing how Suam felt about him; fear at having being challenged to an Eternal Rest; and puzzled at how fast this situation had all unravelled itself. "Come on! If you really are the 'terrifying close combat expert' Suam told me you were earlier today, then why don't you fight me!?" The furious Tau mocked, "Unless you want to run off to your _slut._" The last word was drawn out and emphasised massively. This word the raging Tau had just used stirred something deep within Or'es, something so terrifyingly frightening and powerful that Or'es could do nothing to hold it back.

Without saying a word, Or'es took two lightning-quick steps forward, grasped the smaller, lighter Tau by his fatigues, and threw him over the barrier into the now-cleared ring. The other Tau had barely drawn his swords and stood up by the time Or'es was back on him. He sprinted at the barrier, planting one foot on the rough wood, and propelled himself through the air towards the Tau with a thrust of his foot. He slammed into the Tau just as he stood up, his dual swords still at his waist as he was knocked flat onto his back, the breath knocked out of him as the weight of his attacker crushed his stomach. His hands flailed and he dropped his swords at either side of him, and was unable to reach them as Or'es had planted his knees firmly on his hands, restricting any movement.

Or'es tossed his usual lithe-but-powerful fighting style which he patented himself – called Soo'Ka (Artful Strike) – for an all-out brutal assault. He launched punch after punch at the Tau's nose, eyes, mouth and windpipe, which effectively halted his opponent from breathing. The Tau began bleeding after the first few punches as the bridge of his nose was broken, and his jaw was not far from cracking either. Before the Tau was dead, Or'es stood off of him, and began circling him, with a deep look of hatred spread across his face, like a fierce predator toying with its prey. "Get. Up," he said, deeply and barely audible.

"Get. Up."

He ordered louder. The Tau continued to hyperventilate as he lay sprawled in the sand on his back, trying desperately to fill his lungs with air.

"Get. Up!"

The Tau began to move ever so slightly, before very, very slowly, picking him and his swords up, before turning to face Or'es as the flow of cyan-coloured blood from his nose stemmed.

Outside the circle-shaped ring, Or'es could see over fifty amazed spectators, as they witnessed an Eternal Rest round first hand, instead of just hearing about one. The air was silent, except for the deep breathing and occasional wheezing of Or'es' opponent, as his damaged windpipe sucked in air. He turned his attention back to his opponent, before a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. A column of people were squeezing out of the way, obviously for someone of importance, if they could make a whole crowd of people move so they could advance forward. He saw, for the briefest second, the sway of long, deep black hair behind the moving crowd, and he immediately knew who it was.

Suam burst through the front of the crowd of people to stare into Or'es' eyes, terrified at what was taking place. That was the distraction his opponent needed. The bleeding, angry Tau charged forward, and Or'es was caught by surprise as he turned to see two swords being swung at him.

Too late.

The first strike sliced across his left shoulder, lacerating his suprascapular artery. The blood began flowing profusely, but Or'es didn't even have a chance to wince before the strike from the other sword embedded itself in his left arm. A deafening roar of pain and anger was unleashed from his lips as he fought to stay conscious, he had to remember what was at stake here; his pride, his reputation, his life...and Suam. Fighting his mind as it screamed at him to cease fighting and die, he ripped the sword from his left arm, and luckily, the sword hadn't pierced any other arteries, and the flow of blood was minor. A wicked grin of pain and vengeance spread across Or'es' lips, and his opponent reeled back, stunned at what he was doing. He had just slit an artery in his shoulder, pierced his arm with his sword, and he had pulled out the sword...and smiled. He had thought the fight won, but obviously it was far from over. "Impossible," he whispered under his breath. If that didn't stop him, then what could?

Or'es interrupted his opponent's terrified thoughts as he swung with his newly-gained sword, so powerful was the swing that as his opponent attempted to block his attack, his sword was knocked from his hands to the blood-covered sand below. He dropped to his knees as Or'es lunged forward with his one good arm wielding the sword, which pierced his right lung. "Please...I give in...Let...me live," he pleaded, gasping for air as Or'es ripped the sword from his lung. Another scream exited his mouth as the warm metal slid out swiftly from his body.

Or'es stared into the face of the doomed man, who mere minutes ago had had the upper hand in the fight, but who would now lose his life. Raising the sword high above his head, he brought it down with a _crack _of bone as it caved through his skull, lodging itself in his brain. The Tau fell forward, his eyes wide with terror, shock and pain, as they would be till his corpse rotted away.

Or'es dropped to his knees, covering his lacerated shoulder with his right hand, trying to stem the blood flow. Or'es would almost certainly need a new left arm, that is, if he didn't die of blood loss first. His eyes felt heavy as he struggled to keep them open, the ripped artery in his shoulder still aching. He watched as Suam hopped over the small barrier, and began sprinting towards him, her long robe kicking up the dust in the ring as Or'es let go of his senses.

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**Final Comments: **Ok, so that was interesting - for me, anyway - and hopefully for all of you who are following this story. If you enjoyed this chapter, or if you didn't, please review and tell me what was wrong/needed to be done. Also, we'll be seeing a new face in the chapter, which promises to be even longer than _Chapter Five: Secure_.

In **Chapter Seven: Pressing Forward**, Shaper Kevork leads his forces on the assault of an Imperial out-city, you can join in, too. Just submit a review, detailing your character's name, position, race, equipment, or whatever you feel necessary, and I'll make sure to include you in the battle. Whether it be Imperial, Tau or Kroot, you'll definitely be mentioned, if you comment before the 22nd of March, which is when the next chapter will be up. If you miss the deadline, don't worry, I'll make sure you're included in the next chapter.


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